>John Miller-"Let’s go riding"

gadaya

8 years ago

>Here’s a nice out-of-print lp by guitar player (and here banjo and fiddle player as well) John Miller. John is well known for his wonderful playing (and teaching) of Country Blues guitar in the style of the masters of the 1920’s and 1930’s like Furry Lewis, Robert Wilkins, Bo Carter, Blind Blake, etc… but he’s an accomplished musician in other kinds of musical traditions as well (I personnaly love his arrangements of George Gershwin’s tunes). This is, i believe one of his first record, issued by Rounder in 1973 but recorded a couple of years before when John was still a student at the university. The first side of the lp is devoted to John’s wonderful country Blues guitar playing and his ability to create his own arrangements from classic country Blues recordings is amazing. The second side is a unique opportunity to hear John’s venture into old-time music, with many banjo tunes and some fiddle as well. He says in the liner notes that he’s been playing banjo for only one year at the time of this recordings and it’s quite hard to believe when hearing his excellent numbers on the instrument. John had invited some good musician friends to play with him and among them the excellent guitar flatpicker, Russ Barenberg.